Friday, June 4, 2010

This week in the gardens

My backyard Oakleaf hydrangea....this guy has almost been moved because of not doing really well under this maple tree. This year seems to be a turn around year for it. I will leave it for one more year to see how it does. For the life of me, I cannot remember the name of this flower. I'm sure that I have the tag somewhere in my shed.

Lauren's very own raised bed. She loves it! Last year it was over run with her gourds. Actually the gourds over ran most everything around them!! This year...no gourds...just some flowers and some veggies.

The very first red raspberry of the season. Not quite ready yet. We have had a fair amount of bee activity which is encouraging with all of the talk of Colony Collapse Disorder.

Baby red raspberries :)

The remainder of my tomato plants...total of 40 this year. Many different varieties.

Volunteer dill....love the way it smells just by bumping into it!

My pepper bed. Something is making my plants on the left side of the picture all wilt. I think that something is eating them just below the soil line. :(

Roma tomatoes

16 Roma tomato plants....hoping for lots of canning and some salsa!!

Potatoes poking through the ground

Potato bed with plants just breaking ground Annabelle Hydrangea This plant has become huge! I received it in a gallon pot for Mother's Day about 10 years ago, have transplanted it when we moved to this house and it seems quite happy where it landed. It gets some pretty punishing summer sun from the west. I think that next spring I will be dividing it.

Black raspberries...will have to net these very soon. The birds will think that they have dessert otherwise.

Same black raspberry bush. We transplanted this from a start near our compost pile that was probably deposited from a bird. Last year was a great year and we got a lot of berries from it. Quite a bit of the plant died after this past winter.

Yellow primroses

Oakleaf Hydrangea. I have quite a few hydrangea bushes...six actually. This is the best that this one has ever looked. As you can tell, we are in the process of remulching the flower beds this year....as well as getting ahead of the darn weeds.

My rogue Delphinium among the Columbines. I started all of these perennials from seed and this one got planted in the wrong place. It seems to like it here though, so I hate to move it.

Close up picture of the Delphinium

My pride and glory Jackmanii clematis. I have had others of these and they have never lived past the first year. Thought I had found something that I just was not going to be able to grow, but persistence paid off with these pretty blooms!

Believe it or not, this is actually a Glowing Embers Hydrangea. You would never be able to tell by looking at the flowers. They are supposed to be red. Mine are white with a pink tinge to them. I nearly killed three hydrangeas one year by liming them to try to change their color. They didn't bloom for a couple years after that. This year is the first year that they seem to have come out of it.